Unraveling the violence in Kazakhstan

There were several high-profile violent incidents in 2011 in Kazakhstan, including several bombings, shootings that targeted police, and a protest turned clash that resulted in a number of deaths. Some of the perpetrators reportedly had links with radical religious groups. An overlooked aspect of the violence is how it is reported in Kazakhstan. There are active, competent media in Kazakhstan, which are largely unknown in the West. An examination of these incidents using the media in Kazakhstan can provide a unique insight into what took place. While Western sources quickly blamed radical religious groups with international connections, media in Kazakhstan have found that there are other reasons for the violence.     

基于三粒子纠缠态的量子安全直接通信协议

提出了一种新的三粒子量子安全直接通信协议。通信过程利用decoy光子来检测窃听,保证信道安全。发送方将秘密消息编码在不同幺正操作上,通信双方通过Bell基和Z基测量可直接传递秘密消息。由于所有粒子都用于传输秘密消息,且传输一次可获得两比特信息,该协议具有较高的量子比特及量子密码协议效率;三粒子纠缠态的制备是已实现技术,该协议具有实际操作的意义。此外,该协议在量子信道中也是安全的。     

A case study in bio-inspired engineering design: defense applications of exoskeletal sensors

As part of a bio-inspired design process, the authors examine exoskeletal sensors found in insects and their potential application to armor and hardened buildings. In this way, the outer hardening of a structure or vehicle would not limit the ability of occupants to arrive at an actionable picture of the outer environment. To this end, various sensor modalities employed by insects are compared and contrasted with their current human-engineered equivalents. In several sensing modalities, biosensors perform better, are smaller, and more energy efficient than human-engineered equivalents. They note that biological designs tend to employ non-linear response to signal amplitude and respond with heightened sensitivity over a greater dynamic range of signals than human-engineered sensors. The insect biological sensors have structural and mechanical innovations that preserve the protective capacity of the exoskeleton.     

基于灰色关联分析的反导导弹战斗部作战效能评估

针对反导导弹战斗部的性能特点,以灰色关联理论为基础,采用灰色加权关联度分析进行综合评判,建立了反导导弹战斗部作战效能评估模型．最后通过算例,验证了该模型的完整性,最终为决策者做出合理的作战决策提供了理论参考．     

基于CREAM的后方仓库叉车装卸运输弹药HRA评估

针对我军后方仓库弹药装卸运输环节对人员叉车操作的安全性需求,设计出了叉车操作测试场地路线,归纳总结了人员操作叉车进行弹药装卸运输环节中的安全失效形式及失效原因,构建了HRA评估数学模型．选取我军某后方仓库搬运机械建制班人员为对象,进行了实地测试,得到了弹药装卸运输环节的人为失误概率．测试结果表明,基于CREAM方法能够较好地解决后方仓库弹药装卸运输环节人为失误概率的量化问题．     

Human security in pastoralist areas of Eastern Africa

Abstract

Pastoralist groups in Eastern Africa are extremely vulnerable as a result of inter-community conflicts, the harsh terrain, and unfavourable climatic conditions. They have been neglected by successive regimes on matters of socio-economic development. At present pastoralist areas in Eastern Africa have the lowest literacy rates and insufficient health care facilities. This article interrogates the historical relationship between governments, humanitarian groups and pastoralists. It notes with great concern that pastoralists have been branded as hunger-stricken populations with insignificant economic potential that can be harnessed from their day-to-day livelihood. They are treated as sedentary populations who need a constant supply of relief food to keep going. In order to reverse these misconceptions, the article places emphasis on mitigating the threats of intra-community conflicts, diseases and natural disasters through investment in social schemes and infrastructure in order to open up the areas for service provision. Indeed, for a majority of the pastoralists, insecurity comes not so much from traditional security concerns, but from human insecurity concerns about their survival, preservation of their lifestyle and well-being in a day-to-day context.     

South Africa's arsenal of terrorism legislation

After only ten years in existence, the African Union (AU) has already made its mark on the landscape of peace and security in Africa. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between the AU's leading collaborative interstate security policy, the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), and sustainable peace in the Horn of Africa. It examines four countries – Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Kenya – and how engaging with the APSA through early warning systems can contribute to developing the elements necessary for sustainable peace, namely regional stability, conflict management, and good governance.     

Making sense of the Southern African Development Community

SADC has a poor record in advancing peace and security in Southern Africa. Many identify poor policy frameworks and weak technical capacities as the major obstacles. Laurie Nathan goes beyond these easy explanations in his important new book on SADC. Absence of common democratic values and reluctance to surrender state sovereignty are key factors preventing SADC from making progress according to this book. This article argues that Nathan overstates the case and that there are real prospects and potentials for making further progress in regional cooperation. The lessons from the history of European integration also points to the important role of regional leadership. South Africa, in coalition with other likeminded countries, may still be in a position to move the SADC project forward.     

The case for demilitarising Lesotho

ABSTRACT

The Kingdom of Lesotho spends around five per cent of its annual budget – some 700 million Maloti ($US52.6 million) in 2017 – on the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF). Lesotho’s geographical position means that the LDF has no meaningful role regarding its primary function of defending the country from external aggression and it hardly engages in its secondary functions. In addition, the LDF has a long history of interference with democratic processes and engaging in human rights abuse. The financial resources currently allocated to the LDF could do far more for security, widely defined, if they were allocated to a number of other government expenditure categories.     

Force deployment and the production of security: Why is the united states in NATO?

Standard economic concepts of production and cost minimization subject to a production constraint are used to derive the conditions of optimal deployment of home and forward military forces for the production of home security. United States' participation in the NATO alliance is then analyzed in the context of a two‐ally (U.S. and Western Europe) optimal force deployment model of NATO. Next, U.S. force‐basing policy is adduced as an enforcement mechanism for the “transatlantic contract.” Lastly, statistical evidence on burden sharing within Western Europe, and the effectiveness of the U.S. contract enforcement policy, is presented.